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stepped to the microphone. His eyes were moist. He said slowly, "We've just had some very bad news. The little son of one of the boys on the show"—he named him—"died a few minutes ago. There isn't much to say to our pal except that we love him and our hearts are with him, so we want to sing him a song."
Reverently, hats in hand, the stage crowded with clowns and stars sang the beloved old hymn, "Never Alone." I won't soon forget that.
My second memory begins with the evening pretty Miss Juneybug Carter, just out of her teens, stopped in the wings to remind me of a date to come visitin' on Sunday afternoon. Miss Juneybug was being formal about this, and it itched her something awful. Fidgiting with one of her perky pigtails, she said again, "Come see us now, y' heah?" I said once more that I would. Neither of us could think of anything more to say, so we just gulped at each other. Suddenly Miss Juney's citified pose broke down. Grinning implishly, she swung into her familiar hillbilly talk: "Reckon ah better tell y' how t' git thar. You head out no'th o' town till y' cross a kind of a ole bridge. Then y' watch right smaht for the houses, and when y' see the plumb last house, that theres our'n. If'n they ain't nobody t'home, jest light down and set a spell. You'll find a rocker on the stoop."
It sounded right neighborly, and that's how it turned out. The cottage snugged into the hills near Nashville was of native stone and timber from the surrounding piney woods, and it was as homey as the people who lived in it—Pop Ezra Carter, Mother Maybelle Carter, and daughter Juney. We had a real nice visit.
Mother Maybelle slipped off her Sunday shoes and allowed it was a shame her other girls, Helen and 'Nita, being married, were busy with their homework that day. Pop Ezra cracked hickory nuts and told about the time he was a mail clerk. Miss Juney fetched in a pan of warm fudge and a crock of cold milk, and we sat around chattin' and chawin' until nigh sundown. I purley hated to leave.
Going back down the road, it was hard to realize that Mother Maybelle and Miss Juney, for all their unpretentious ways, are stars whose incomes this year will put many a |
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